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From the rising curve of the Arthur Laing Bridge over the North Arm of the Fraser River, where the roadside signs include a caution to watch for low-flying aircraft, you get a glimpse of what suburban Canada is fast becoming.

Ahead the sky opens up and across the flatlands of the delta you see a maze of new condominium towers and construction cranes set against a hazy, blue Pacific.

Richmond, once a sleepy rural district on the outskirts of Vancouver, has been transformed by waves of recent immigrants into a bustling new centre of urban growth. It has become a small satellite city that seems a world away from the old English charm of the Tudor-style mansions on the Vancouver side of the river.

What just over a decade ago was farmland in Richmond has been transformed into sprawling housing tracts, subtopian malls, industrial parks, condo towers and a flurry of Chinese-language business signs.

All of this growth has been driven by a steady flow of immigrants, mostly from China and South Asia. It's part of a national trend that is making the suburbs bigger, busier and more ethnically diverse.

According to several years of census data for 15 suburbs, analyzed by The Globe and Mail, the nation is undergoing a sweeping demographic shift as waves of immigrants settle in and around the major urban centres. In the process the suburbs are being transformed.

Visible minorities are on the rise nationally -- climbing from 11 per cent of the population in 1996 to 13 per cent in 2001 -- but nowhere is that more pronounced than in suburbia. In Richmond, 59 per cent of the total population were visible minorities in 2001, up from 49 per cent just five years earlier.

Burnaby (49 per cent) and in Ontario, Markham, (56 per cent), and Richmond Hill, Mississauga and Brampton (all at 40 per cent), have all grown at a similar rapid rate.

In Richmond, 80 per cent of all recent immigrants now come from just five countries: China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, India and the Philippines.

Richmond exploded during the mid-1990s when a wave of immigrants arrived from Hong Kong, anticipating the return of the British colony to Chinese rule. Since then there has been a shift to immigrants from China, from where almost 30 per cent of recent immigrants originate.

"The last five houses on my block all sold to families from mainland China," says realtor Cynthia Chen, who has noticed the change.

Richmond's population grew by 71 per cent between 1981 and 2001. This rapid growth brought problems to the community, where schools are under pressure to integrate large numbers of students who have English as a second language and where there is a constant struggle to bridge the barriers between diverse cultural groups.

Mostly, however, the story of Richmond is one of a community that has been energized by newcomers who have given the once sleepy suburb a whole new look and feel.

You sense the energy as you enter the community, with jets dropping altitude across the highway, roaring in to land at Vancouver International Airport on Sea Island, the first entry point for most Asian immigrants to Canada.

Moments after entering Richmond you pass the site of the new Aerospace campus of the British Columbia Institute of Technology, a construction crew pounding away at a rapid-transit line to Vancouver, and a vast sand field on Lulu Island, where the Richmond Olympic Oval is being built for the 2010 Games.

Sherman Tai, an immigrant from Hong Kong who has carved out a career as a feng shui consultant, describes this convergence of energy as the qi of Richmond.

Qi, which is pronounced "chee," is a Chinese term for the life force believed to exist in everything and about which Mr. Tai is an expert. He advised the City of Richmond on the feng shui of city hall, so that the qi could be released, and is providing similar advice on the Olympic Oval.

Lying as it does between the ocean, the North Shore mountains and three arms of the Fraser River, Mr. Tai says Asians see Richmond as perfectly placed to prosper.

"Vancouver is the edge of the mountains and mountains, from the feng shui aspect, is the dragon," Mr. Tai says. "And then the dragon is chasing the pearl and Richmond is the pearl . . . at the same time we have the duplication of the qi from the water . . . the ocean, the river.

"The mountain is also our back up, [our] support and that support is the [supply] of immigrants. We need the new people, we need the new people to keep the city exciting. Of course you can also say they create the traffic problem and a lot of immigrants create unemployment, but no matter, from the overall aspect . . . we can bring the people, we can bring the money, we can bring business."

When new immigrants land in communities across Canada, agencies often pair them up with volunteer hosts who help them get settled. One such person in Richmond is Fred Gordo, who immigrated from Japan in 1968 and can often be found leading conversational English classes or advising newcomers.

Mr. Gordo says the two main questions on every new immigrants mind are: How do I get health care? And where do I bank?

"But the main problem," says Mr. Gordo, who has been a volunteer host for 13 years, "is always the same thing. It's the language problem -- how to communicate.

"If you surround yourself with people from your own culture you can become isolated."

That highlights one of the problems created when ethnic groups cluster in a given area, as they are increasingly doing, creating ethnic neighbourhoods.

In Richmond, as in other suburbs across Canada where ethnic groups consolidate, it is possible to work, shop and socialize entirely in a language other than French or English.

"I tell them to speak with all kinds of people if possible, so they can open up a little bit instead of being shut in. But people like to be around those they feel familiar with. It's a comfort thing," Mr. Gordo says.

And it's a comfort many immigrants seek.

In Richmond, the South Asian cultural group manifests most clearly in an area known as the Golden Village, a retail district near the community's core where Asian shops and businesses predominate.

Signs are in Chinese, with small English translations underneath, and among thousands of busy shoppers it is not unusual to see only one or two Caucasians.

A few years ago two American tourists stirred controversy in Richmond when they complained of not being able to get service in English, or to even find any English signs.

Shashi Assanand, a refugee from Uganda in the 1970s and a member of Richmond's intercultural advisory committee, says that complaint triggered a debate that made the community take a look at itself.

"What was good about it was that it started a dialogue," she says.

After a series of public meetings, the committee concluded that "every business should have signage in English. Heritage languages are okay because we want to encourage people to keep their language, but at the same time using English. For integration purposes . . . that would work better."

Ahn Bong Ja, a Korean immigrant and poet who moved to Richmond a year ago from Vancouver, says cultural integration is a growing problem because many recent arrivals are relatively wealthy.

When she immigrated, 36 years ago, the Korean government forbade her from taking more than $200 with her. That forced her and her new husband to plunge into the work force -- and into Canadian society.

"As soon as we got here we got into this society, we were thrust into it," she says. "New immigrants these days come with a bundle of money and don't have a reason to go right into society. . . . We had to do something right away for survival. I didn't even have a chance to think; I blended in right away."

The series

Monday: How Canada's suburbs look more and more like cities

Tuesday: Laval and Canada's aging suburbs

Wednesday: In Vaughan, rising numbers -- and incomes

Today: Richmond and the immigrant experience

Vancouver immigrants

Percentage of total population

1986	29%
1991	30%
1996	35%
2001	38%

Richmond immigrants

Immigrant population

1986	34,005
1991	44,560
1996	71,625
2001	88,300

Richmond immigrants

Percentage of total population

1986	31%
1991	35%
1996	48%
2001	54%

SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA